Determining when to allow retail customers to return purchased merchandise is a delicate and complex business decision that faces many merchants. On the positive side, customers typically appreciate, and have come to expect, a liberal return policy. Such a policy can engender good will towards the merchant and often encourages the customer to purchase more freely, indulging more often in “impulse buying.”
On the negative side, accepting returned merchandise can expose the merchant to a number of disadvantages, including, for example, loss of a sale, possible inability to re-sell the item at the original price, extra labor and bookkeeping expenditures associated with handling the return, and a wide variety of fraudulent behaviors on the part of the customer and/or employee accepting the return.
Implementing a complex return policy that can take into account not only the current return situation but also other related information may serve the interests of the merchant, attempting to balance the above-described advantages and disadvantages, while enhancing customer good will, store reputation, as well as bottom-line profitability. Unfortunately, the customer contact person for a store's return policy is frequently a lower-tier clerk, who may not be equipped to implement such a policy or know how to use available information to help make the return authorization determination.